From monkeys to crocodiles and a monster albino python. Meet the couple who share their home with hundreds of exotic pets

From the front, the redbrick semi in Bovingdon, near Hemel Hempstead, looks rather ordinary, with a scraggy hedge, a couple of garages to one side and a boring-looking car in the driveway.

So, barely ten minutes after pressing the doorbell, it feels slightly strange to be standing on the muddy back lawn, surrounded by monkeys, bats, birds of prey and with a 10ft albino Burmese python curling gently round my neck.

Er, well . . . actually, yes she is, in a 10ft, scaly, snaky way - though her bobbing head and red eyes are a little too beady for my liking.

'We think she's gorgeous. She belonged to a teenager who went off to college and his mum was too scared to look after her. You're doing very well - just the sight of her gets the bats and marmosets a bit het up.'

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I should explain. Mark, a qualified zoologist, and his girlfriend, Siouxsie Gillet, 34, share their home with hundreds of unwanted exotic beasts.

So there's a family of meerkats in the conservatory, more than 30 species of frog and lizard in a big tank in the sitting room, a couple of dozen venomous snakes and scorpions in a locked room just off the kitchen, three dogs called Maisy, Billy and Kimber, and six tarantulas and a couple of green iguanas in the spare room upstairs. And that's just inside.

Furry friends: A family of meerkats

Outside, in the small suburban back garden, there's a family of giant African tortoises, a couple of pigs, two owls, a Harris hawk, a falcon, a polecat, a dozen fruit bats, a few ferrets and a family of marmosets eager to show us their very pink bottoms. Oh yes, and a 14-year-old crocodile in a shed.

'Exotic animals, particularly reptiles, are more and more popular as pets because they're low maintenance - they don't need walking,' explains Siouxsie.

'But people don't realise when they see a snake on telly, or a snowy owl in the Harry Potter films, that they have specialist requirements and very specific diets, and that's where the problems start.'

And where Mark and Siouxsie step in. 'We're up at five every morning - apart from Tuesdays when we have a lie-in until seven - to start the food prep, chopping up fruit, mixing feed, cleaning out the enclosures, checking everyone's OK, which takes a good three hours. Then we head off to the shop.'

Eight-legged pets: The couple have six tarantulas

The couple run their own exotic pet shop nearby, but given all the animals they rescue, they impose strict criteria on their customers before they'll sell them an animal.

'I had a man in the other day who wanted a toad that would sit on his shoulder - how stupid is that? We only sell to people who know what they're doing, or you end up with more and more rejected animals.'

After a full day in the shop, they head home for another couple of hours' work in the evening, cleaning out the cages, feeding the pigs and putting the birds away 'before it's time for an hour answering emails from the RSPCA and people who need homes for their pets and, occasionally, bed by midnight'.

Even they admit that the animals have taken over. The sitting room is dominated by two giant tanks - one full of frogs, toads, crabs and lizards, and the other glittering with beautiful fish. 'These are all rescues. If they hadn't come here, they'd have been flushed down the toilet. They're wonderful to watch.'

So much so that when the couple do, albeit rarely, slump in front of the telly ('obviously, wildlife documentaries are our favourite'), they usually end up swivelling the sofa round and watching the tank - 'there's much more interesting things going on in there'.

Snap happy: The couple keep a 14-year-old crocodile in the shed

'I'm only sorry the tarantulas and the iguanas aren't here to show you,' adds Siouxsie, apologetically. 'We keep them in the spare room, but we've had to move them out while we did some decorating.'

It all started about a decade ago, when Mark, then a butcher and a venomous snake enthusiast, was working 60 hours a week in Asda and wishing he'd done something with his zoology degree.

'Then I got cancer and it sort of made me think. So I branched out and opened the shop, and it went from there,' he says.

The pair met in the shop - Siouxsie, a herpetologist (amphibian expert), was a customer - and moved to their current home a couple of years ago.

Extra special pets: A rare albino python

It took a month to build all the runs and pens and aviaries, and two days to move all the animals in. They claim the neighbours have been absolutely fine with it all. 'The people before us were a bit of a nightmare, so maybe we're a welcome change, and we're far too knackered to have wild parties,' say the couple.

The biggest headache is the daytoday care, with no help. Aren't they exhausted?

'Oh God, yes, completely shattered. It's very rewarding and we love them all very much, but you do sometimes wonder: Will there ever be an end? 'The rest of our life has been completely shoved aside. If our friends want to see us, they have to come and see us here.'

Which, I can't help thinking, as our grand tour reaches the venomous snake and killer scorpion room (full of cobras hissing at us, tongues darting angrily, venom splattered on the glass), might not appeal to everyone. And holidays? They both look at me blankly. Days off, then?

The couple pose in their back garden with Oscar the pot-bellied pig

'We did have a day off to go to Amsterdam for Mark's birthday last year,' says Siouxsie'But we spent two days preparing for it and two days catching up and we were leaving at five, so we had to get up at two to start the feeds.

'So by the time we got back, we were so shattered we wished we'd never gone.' Mark butts in: 'And where did we go? Guess. The zoo. One day off and we go to a different zoo. Can you believe it?'

Well, yes, actually, I can. I have never met two people more animalobsessed in my life. You'd think they'd be climbing the walls, grey with tiredness, as the animals squawked and squealed around them. But Siouxsie is bubbly, pretty and friendly. And while his various piercings and the enormous silver scorpion hanging round his neck are a little startling at first, Mark is delightful company. Even the animals seem beautifully behaved.

Financially, though, it's a disaster. The food bills are enormous: £40 a week on locusts, crickets and other insects; £70 a week on mice; about £30 on chickens. 'We used to spend about £100 every few days on fresh fruit, but now Sainsbury's lets us have the out-of-date stuff free.'

Meanwhile, they eat rather less well than their beloved animals. 'We're just too busy to be bothered, and, anyway, most of the freezer is taken up with their food.' The pair's home is now a mini zoo with enough room for Giant African Spur

The top two shelves house a couple of frozen pizzas and a vegetarian

And the animals sing for their supper, too. 'See that tortoise over there,' says Mark, pointing to an enormous African tortoise basking under a heat lamp, 'he was in the recent film of Brideshead Revisited, with diamantes stuck all over his back.

'And Oscar the pig's been on children's TV. And a few years ago, I worked with one of the toads on the film Nanny McPhee.

'I had to train him to jump out of a teapot and hang on the edge, then jump down onto the table and hop off. And he did it, right on cue. Then Colin Firth fluffed his lines and we had to retake it.'

Back on the grand tour, we've reached the crocodile house where Kid Croc, an African dwarf crocodile, basks in a specially designed pool after his breakfast of rat or chicken drumsticks.

'It would be nice to get him a girlfriend as he's an endangered species, but if we put anything else in, he'd probably kill it.'

Speaking of which, have either of them had any nasty nips?

'I've only had two hospitalised bites in more than 20 years,' says Mark cheerily.

'See that finger there - that was a bite. All the flesh completely rotted and they dug it out and it dried up and they gave me an anti-venom to steady my heart and a bit of plastic surgery to put it all back together. They did a fantastic job.'

And Siouxsie? 'Oh God, all the time. Though the worst was when I got my hand sliced open by a 14ft reticulated python. We were busy at the time, so I just let it bleed for a few days and it seemed to sort itself out.'

Back in the garden, Honey is hugging me tighter and tighter by the second and weaving her tail rather alarmingly between my legs.

Hang on a minute. How is it again that pythons kill their prey, I ask, ever so slightly clammy.

'Oh, they crush them to death,' says Mark breezily. 'But they usually grab them with their jaws to hold them in place first . . .'

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From monkeys to crocodiles and a monster albino python. Meet the couple who share their home with hundreds of exotic pets